Hurricane Ivan Report

Hurricane Ivan report from Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Thursday September 23, 2004

A buddy of mine, Preston Honea, has a townhome on the Sound at Fort Walton Beach Florida. Hurricane Ivan hit this area pretty hard being in the northeast quadrant of the storm. I drove down there Saturday to try and give him a hand cleaning up. On the way down as I got near Montgomery Alabama on I-65, the only way to get there because of bridges being down on I-10, Highway 90, Highway 20, etc., I started to get a feel for what was in store for me. Convoys of utility trucks from Detroit, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Kansas, you name it. Convoys of National Guard tankers with water and fuel. Trees down along the Interstate. And I'm still several hours from the coast. The closer I got the more damage I saw. Utility trucks were everywhere working on downed power lines and fallen trees to restore power and clear the roads. National Guard Armories and parking lots had relief workers and trucks distributing water, ice and meals. Many of them had signs saying "Out of Ice", etc. Once I got to the bay near Shalimar I started seeing boats washed up on shore, docks destroyed and homes and businesses damaged or destroyed. And I am still 20 - 30 minutes from the coast. Once I got to Highway 98 and saw boats across the highway in shopping center parking lots and debris everywhere the magnitude of the storm really sunk in because I am about 60 miles from where the eye made landfall. On a little better note I was happy to see Preston's townhome had survived pretty much intact. The hurricane shutters kept the dock sections, boats and debris out, albeit piled up in front and back to the point it took him and Faye a full day just to dig out enough to get into the place. Water and mud had managed to get in about a foot deep, not bad considering the storm surge (wave that came in) was about 20 or 25 feet high. The Marina there was pretty much totaled, all the decking and walkways were up against the townhomes and scattered throughout the property along with most of the boats that were not moved out. After several days of work with chainsaws, snow shovels (that's right snow shovels, I've been through floods before), shop vacs and just good old manual labor (took about ten of us to roll the floating docks on PVC pipe and boards back to the water) Preston's place, Faye's unit and John Kitchin's are well on the way to being repaired. The pictures I posted include pictures of Preston's new house under construction and his neighbor's, Glo and Suzi, over there. Those houses are on a river that comes into the Bay east of Destin so they took some wind and flooding of the property but the houses were not damaged. My daughter's house in Niceville had some minor roof damage but luckily her renter is a roofer and will take care of it for her. My son-in-laws condo on Okaloosa Island is on the second floor facing the Gulf of Mexico and they had just remodelled the inside this summer. As of Wednesday I could still not get onto the island to check it as they were only allowing property owners onto the island. The reports I received was that the 1st floor units of some of the high rises had taken a lot of water and sand but most 2nd floor units were intact.